Ground Breaking Banter - Rick
One of the things that’s most exciting about gardening is that you never stop learning. Whether it’s growing a plant for the first time, or the fact that life got in the way and threw off what you consider your usual timing, or the weather threw some curveballs (which, come on, it always does!), gardeners find themselves, their practices, and their assumptions constantly challenged. But that’s how we learn and become better gardeners!
In this last episode of 2024, we’re reflecting on the many lessons we learned this season. Whether it was in preparing for a specific topic for the show here or things that happened in our own gardens, it was definitely a big year for learning. Join us at the YouTube link above or on your favorite podcast platform for our whole conversation on what we learned from our gardens in 2024.
When most people think of spirea, the plant that comes to mind is either the classic white flowered bridal wreath spirea or the mounded pink flowering Japanese spirea. But the genus spiraea is actually quite large, with lots of interesting plants, and a number of them are native to North America. If you head to the north of Michigan in summer, you’ll almost certainly see Spirea tomentosa, also known as steeplebush, in flower – the flowers look a lot like an astilbe, even though the two plants aren’t related because spirea is in the rose family and astilbe in the saxifragaceae. And while there are only two spirea native to Michigan, there’s another species that’s widespread through the western half of North America and that’s Spiraea betulifolia, aka birch leaf spirea.
As its name implies, birch leaf spirea has small leaves that do indeed resemble those of a birch tree. In spring, it’s covered in white flower clusters that are reminiscent of the bridal wreath spirea. It’s really a lovely plant, and if you opt for today’s plant on trial, Glow Girl birch leaf spirea, you’ll also get the added bonus of golden foliage. Its small size gives it an appealing texture, and through the season but especially in cool weather, the new growth emerges with a little flush of red. Come fall, it blazes up in shades of red, yellow, and pink.
Glow Girl birch leaf spirea naturally grows with that tidy mounded shape that makes most spirea so popular in the first place, which makes it a perfect “shoes and socks” plant – one that you can plant at the base of taller plants or at the front of the border. It reaches 3-4’ tall and wide, though in my experience growing it in dry conditions, it stayed much, much shorter. It grows well in sun to part sun and the warmer your climate, the more shade it will need.
Hardy down to USDA zone 3, heat tolerant through USDA zone 9. Deer resistant, not rabbit resistant.
If you’d like to add Glow Girl birchleaf spirea – or any of the 320+ Proven Winners ColorChoice Shrubs – to your garden or landscape, you’ll find a list of local retailers here.
